Differences between xbl and psn(online only)

[Alkohallick]

The drama here is all show. The 360 just happens to have demos for it's XBL game (check box indeed), therefore it is a necessary feature. Yet plenty of us buy $60 games with no demos. Like I said most of the biggest selling or highest rated games this gen have no demo or ones casting them in poor light. I for one hated the Crackdown demo and didn't give it a chance until I bought it for $20 after word of mouth.

The thread never really had a point, it is just another versus thread full of twisted logic.



Wow, mature...

if you would take the time to re-read the op and not the following mush that was posted days later you would have noticed the original point of the thread was not a vs thread on demos or features but about the network itself as it applies to connecting in-game

 

[Gubbi]

I've purchased more games over the years due to demos rather than be turned off by them. Combined with the fact that it IS something basically inherent to marketing (it's why we have PS3 kiosks, for example), I have a really hard time buying that demos only reduce sales in most cases.

Same experience. I don't read game reviews. I download game videos from Live, if a game looks mildly interesting I'll download the demo, - and that might convince me to buy it.

I've bought 4 games as a result of their demos:
Condemned
Crackdown (best game this gen!)
Lost Planet
Kingdom Under Fire (mistake)

And I'm getting Halo Wars, because of the demo, as soon as I'm done with Fable II.

IMO, Demos together with game videos is a cheap and powerful marketing tool. Of course, it has to be done well to have a positive effect.

Cheers

 

[Gubbi]

if you would take the time to re-read the op and not the following mush that was posted days later you would have noticed the original point of the thread was not a vs thread on demos or features but about the network itself as it applies to connecting in-game

Alright, back on topic.

The advantage of XBox Live is that Microsoft delivered a peer-to-peer network framework where developers could add online multiplayer to their games without bearing the cost of dedicated server infrastructure. Many more games on the 360 has had online multiplayer modes.

Peer to peer rocks if it means that a game has multiplayer where it otherwise wouldn't.
Peer to peer sucks when the guy hosting the game lives on the other side of the globe (yes Kiwis, I mean you) and has a 128kbit uplink.
Peer to peer suck when you p0wn the host on Nürburgring and he pulls the plug on the game.
Dedicated servers suck when they are overloaded.
In general, dedicated servers are better because you have a more stable service: better latency, nobody can terminate your game halfway through etc. When dedicated servers are overloaded, it's because many gamers play the game, implying the developer made piles of money which means they can afford extra servers.

An example is Turn 10 who used peer to peer networking in Forza Motorsport 2, but will have dedicated servers in FM 3 (because they made so much money on FM2)

Cheers

 

[patsu]

Repeating the point about dedicated servers, as if there is any correlation, doesn't make it any more true.

Dedicated server is just my example since it's top of my request. The vendors will be interested to deliver an online gaming experience that is similar to it. The high server resource problems can be sidestepped or addressed in various ways. If the vendors can't do a straight up, old-fashioned dedicated server platform, they will simply provide the next best thing or twist the problem around. They won't throw up their hands and avoid talking about it.

e.g., MS has early experiment with advanced bots in P2P games to sidestep lag issues, Sony is experimenting with 256 player MAG and MMO business models, MS is looking into thousand player ad-supported, server-hosted games like Xbox Live Primetime, etc.

I don't see it as a problem. I see it as opportunities. And it's happening in different forms whether you think it's true or otherwise.

No one is debating demos of bad titles or bad demos of good titles can hurt sales

...

Let consumers choose which demos are effective and ineffective.

We are the best guide to what we want--not MS/Sony and not even developers. But this comes back to is your online platform a service or is it a storefront.

As a strategy the benefits of a consumer and developer centric service cannot be taken in simplistic isolation.

Both online platforms are a storefront and a service at the same time. Exactly because we can't take them in simplistic isolation that in some cases, a demo doesn't tell the right picture (The consumers already have their rights to decide whether a demo is good or bad today/before XBL and PSN).

I think the basic problem here is the thread has past it's Best Before date! We're well past the OP's intentions. Now people are comparing features, which is an okay discussion and a worthwhile follow-on, but, at least as I skim it, the ideas are getting muddled. One person is reading about demo's and seeing a different context to someone else, such that they're arguing on points they agree with.

Might be time to close this thread. If the past pages of discussion had happened in a thread entitled 'Does releasing download demos harm game sales?' then most of the disagreements wouldn't have happened because the core argument would be spelled out.

It's probably true, but someone asked for my opinion of game demoes for all games. ^_^

 

[RobertR1]

FM3 will not have dedicated servers. They'll be using backend servers to support party hopping and such.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=17443712&postcount=7150

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Simple... my point in comparing demos with kiosks, is that the kiosk demo discs are:

more expensive -- you have to press those discs, mail them out, etc. Other than the material costs, it costs more in terms of man-hours to make.

Do you really expect companies to do this just because it's fun and won't necessarily translate into more sales, or worse yet, result in lower sales?

Of course they do it with the intent to increase sales, all investment is allways about intent to get return on investment (and in terms of games, this relates to sales). Just because they intent to increase sales, that doesn't necessarily mean that they do infact get increased sales. Thats an uncertain variable. Historically they probably have. But times change.

Im pretty convinced that for most not so great and worse products, advertising and hyping your product is more important than demos if you want to move some goods! Unless your product is innovative or particularly good at something (most things are NOT), then all that matters is image(marketing) along with pricing.

Why do you think so many developers choose NOT to release a demo of their game? Its because investment might not worth the potential increase in sales (it might also be potential decrease).

The point of my post was that Asher pretty much said that devs should allways to demos unless they really have a crap ass product. And he went about how this increases sales blah blah. I pointed out that demos might not necessarily increase sales. It might infact reduce your sales!I gave a worst case simple example. Its not such a one sided picture as he painted in his post.

The biggest problem with the gaming business is that the competition is so fierce and that they all try to charge the same price! Games having the same price means that everybody competes for the money. Since your 60 bucks buys you 1 new game anyway, you tend to want to buy Great games. Good games not to mention average and terrible just doesn't cut it. Thus, if your game is not on par with the latest and greatest, a demo showcasing this for everybody may very well diminish your sales potential (as there would be more uninformed consumers that would buy your game by chance (for ex. because you have cool boxart\trailer )). Sure some may like your specific niche, but that may not be enough compared to the uninformed guy liking the box art, who now doesn't buy your game because your product isn't particularly good after playing the demo. (or would buy it for whatever other irrational reason.)

Thus, my point is that you cannot say that demo's will increase sales in general. That is a complete unknown, and completely determined by your product and the competition, and other variables. For great products, certainly, demos can boost your profits! But for not so great products its a big unknown, and with a big potential to hurt your profits.

Marketing and hype can carry a game a long way, and demos can ruin that hype in a second. Plenty of gamers that would have sold worse had they been demoed. (Hello EA marketing team (!), their sales compared to review scores is quite simply astonishing.)

Aside conclusion from my post: Developers and publishers should try to price games by their crappiness.

Spoiler

You might want to keep it initially at 60, but and see how market reacts but often you kinda know your 6\10 [Generic Shoter 15] is not going to sell millions!

Im convinced a reduced price to $40-30 for medicore games, thus making them compete with older games (thus technically worse, and with less hype\marketing going for them) they can boost sales much more than a demo can.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Alright, back on topic.

The advantage of XBox Live is that Microsoft delivered a peer-to-peer network framework where developers could add online multiplayer to their games without bearing the cost of dedicated server infrastructure. Many more games on the 360 has had online multiplayer modes.
...

An example is Turn 10 who used peer to peer networking in Forza Motorsport 2, but will have dedicated servers in FM 3 (because they made so much money on FM2)

Cheers

I think that XBL profits alone could easily carry dedicated servers for all somewhat popular online titles. There is 10 million or so XBL gold users? Thats $50 million a month. Lets say worst case scenario: 50% of XBL gold population is online at the same time.

Youd need servers for 5 million people. Each host session can carry 10-32+++ players depending on game. Lets say on average 12. So we need 420 000 servers. (however, most games can easily be hosted in many instances per server with modern pc cpu power and ram amounts, after all these games are designed to be hosted on x360's!) Lets not factor that in, it will be super cheap anyway.

We would need server farms for all continents. Something like: west coast \east coast us. Germany in europe(everybody in europe has 5-100ms ping to central germany if they have a decent connection), Jpn in jpn. Distrubute server amount among regions.

420 000 servers, lets say they each cost $1000 to install and buy (after all we would get a huuuge discount, so this would give us quite decent hardware)

Thats 420 million bucks. Fixed cost, one time investment.

Now lets add bandwith costs: I can rent a dedicated 10mbit cs server for $ 1,24 bucks per player per month (so 12*1,24=$14,88)! 10 mbit upload\download is more than enough to give a lag free experience for 12 players, for any game with a half decent netcode.

Now, since they would have dedicated server farms, the bandwidth they would get would probably be extreme for such a price, so lag wouldn't be a problem anyway. They would also not pay retail for their bandwidth, so it would atleast be half the cost for similar bandwidth. that 0,67$ per player.

5000000*0,67= 3,35 mill per month. Thats nothing. Even if we double the bandwidth cost estimate thats still 6,7 mill per month.

Okay, lets add locale cost.

5 big wearhouses in a city with that can get provided with a huge cable, lets say lease is $400000 a month . 2 mill total per month.

What a good value for maintance per month? Since these farms would be huge, on average 84 000 servers. We would need say 40 people for maintance and running the thing. Lets say on avereage these guys get 50k a year, meaning $ 4 166 per month. times 40*5 =833 333 per month. Lets call it a million per month.

How much is electric on such a farm?

Anyways.

Lets add some stuff up=
Bandwidth 6,7 mill
+Workers\maintance 1 milll +
Locale (looks way high) 2 mill
= 9,7million running cost per month.

A little less than 20% per user on XBL. Before electric.

Lets add some XBL dev costs. This shouldn't be particularly expensive, just a bunch of coders. Lets say 100 of them. 70k a year equals 583 000 per month for all hundred of them.

Now we are at 10,283 000 or 20,56%. per user.

84 000 servers. Lets say one server costs $300 electric per year? That equals 2,1 mill per month.

Let me know if i miss something or should revise some numbers. Also im stoned! so math might be off (calculators are for noobs)

So now we are at 12,383 mill per mill. 0,24766% per user.

Lets see how long this serverfarm installation is payed off.

50*12= 600 million. 600*0,75234=451,4 mill after running costs are payed off.

This covers the initial 451,4 mill after running costs are payed off. Minus server investment = 31,4 mill net profit first year.

420/451,4 = 0,93 *12 = 11.

It would take a little more than 11 months to pay this off.

Microsoft has a AAA rating, allowing them to borrow the 420 million at a yearly cost of 1,33% (LIBOR 1 year fixed no interest risk. 1 year futures for hedging would be cheap aswell). So 420*1,0133=425,586.

After this first year and paying off the debt, XBL GOLD still nets microsoft 75,234%.

I guess its just a matter of greed.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I'm curious in your 50% worst case scenario why you only need servers for 3 million people. Your premise also seems to suggest that we all ran out and got Live today or that MSFT stashed each dollar generated from Live subscriptions into an account awaiting the day for their quarter plus million server purchase that will also magically only cost $400 to buy AND install in multiple geographic regions and that somehow these servers will never need to be serviced/maintained or sunset, thereby, making it a fixed cost, one time investment.

According to some around these parts the 360 is still not profitable...

Hehe because im stoned

Il fix some numbers

account awaiting the day for their quarter plus million server purchase

Microsoft is not exactly liquidity constrained ($60 billion gold reserve FTW + plenty of cash). They dont need to save up the intial money, in the long run it could work out. Lets just discount the investment needed at a fairly high RRoR and see what happends.

Not to mention triple AAA rating and very cheap borrowing is avaliable for them

 

[specwarGP2]

The 'free' argument doesn't matter. My steak was fresh, yours was spoiled. But yours was free right so it's ok right? In the end it doesn't matter, I'm left satisfied, and you are left with a stomach ache. Hiding behind the 'it's free' mantra doesn't work, at some point they have to decide to start being competitive or be left behind.

I happen to love steak so I'll bite on this one

Spoiled steaks have absolutely no value, even if it was free. Would you pay $0.05 for a spoiled steak? Of course not. PSN on the other hand, does have value. I would certainly pay $0.05 for PSN. In terms of utility it's at least 50% as useful as XBL, but it doesn't even cost half as much!

So a better analogy would be that XBL is like a fine rib eye steak that costs $16.99/lb, and PSN is more like a tasty skirt steak that's free. I do love rib eye steak, but I'll take the free skirt steak any day over the rib eye!

 

[2real4tv]

Wow spoiled steak? I think a better analogy would be you one gets the complete rib-eye the other gets 70% of the rib-eye

Spoiler

FOR FREE!

 

[Squilliam]

Peer to peer sucks when the guy hosting the game lives on the other side of the globe (yes Kiwis, I mean you) and has a 128kbit uplink.

I find this offensive, I have 192kbit thank you very much!

 

[thambos]

It's most certainly a time vs money thing. Most studios and teams working on XBLA / PSN games aren't huge, and neither are the sales. Why waste money creating a demo if studies show (and they do) that Demos, more often than not, negatively impact sales?

i'm interested in reading these studies. who were they done by, when & where were they done, what was the control group, what type of study was it?

if there are links for the journals i'd like to read those as well.

it seems contrary to my own experiences, that's why i want to read these studies you're referring to.